Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will be making a campaign stop in the Emerald City tomorrow, complete with a $100-a-ticket fundraiser and musical guest. No, it’s not Obama Girl. It’s Brad and The Dusty 45’s. …

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So Dec. 10, which the UN annually proclaims Human Rights Day, diplomats around the world are kicking off a year-long commemoration with a variety of events. …

Often comparisons can be misleading, and certainly the flooding Washingtonians endured last week differs in many ways from what happened in New Orleans in 2005. However, as I photographed collapsed sections of roads and rising flood waters in Seattle basements, and then as I drove through the mud-blanketed flood plains of Lewis County, arriving at the base of that huge pile of dead livestock, it was impossible to not be reminded of the chaos that engulfed New Orleans after the levees broke, and what was left after the water drained. Though perhaps on a smaller scale, the fallout from last week’s relentless rain had all the telltale elements of that other devastating flood: destruction, sorrow, and the truly bizarre. …

Maybe the biggest casualty of the writers’ strike isn’t a favorite drama or sitcom. Maybe the most tragic result — apart from the writers’ lost livelihoods — is the silence of the super-satirists: Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, the cast of “Saturday Night Live” and perhaps, especially, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. …